Science Friday - Slow Breaking News: A Giant Tortoise Revival

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

In February, conservationists released 158 young tortoises onto Floreana Island in the Galapagos. The Floreana tortoise subspecies had long been thought extinct, but the discovery of close relatives on another island made a captive breeding effort possible.  SciFri turtle correspondent Charles Bergquist talks with conservationist Penny Becker about the science behind the reintroduction, and what it was like to return the species to an island that had not seen them since the 1850s. Plus, the latest on sea turtle nesting season, and an ancient sea turtle stampede. Guest: Dr. Penny Becker is CEO of the nonprofit Island Conservation. Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Hey, I'm Flora Lichtenen, and you're listening to Science Friday. It seems like the world is moving ever faster, with news alerts that change from one hour to the next. So we decided it might be a good idea to focus on some slow moving stories. Coming out of his shell is SciFri Chief Turtle and Tortoise correspondent. Charles Burquist, welcome. Hey, Flora. You have been on the glacial turtle-tortle beat at SciFri for over a decade. I understand. Yeah, I mean, this started in 2012 when a lonesome George, the famous Galapagos

tortoise, died. He had been kind of a conservation icon as the last of a line. So I ended up producing this memorial obituary segment, which involved getting a live sat phone conversation between Ira and the late tortoise conservationist Linda Kayo from the Galapagos. Amazing. I should note a follow up on that. Like in 2020, some genetics analysis led researchers is to believe that George's line may not be completely lost. So that's good news. I love that. Good news already. Can we, before we get going, please tell me the difference between a turtle and a tortoise?

Okay. So all tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises. Tortoises are specifically a subset of turtles that are primarily land dwelling, whereas turtles can include both aquatic and not aquatic species. Okay, so back to the Galapagos. This year, there are some exciting developments in tortoise conservation. Yeah, so not Lonesome George, but another subspecies of Galapagos tortoise. This one's from Floriana Island. So there's 13 major islands in the Galapagos and about the same number of distinct tortoise subspecies across those islands. Tortoises on Floriana had been pretty much wiped out, but earlier this year, conservationists released 100,000.

158 young tortoises onto the island. I had a chance to talk with Penny Becker. She's CEO of the group Island Conservation. That was one of the partners in this big release effort. She told me a kind of astonishing story about what happened to the Floriana tortoise on the island, which involved both invasive species and settlers who came. The tortoises were directly utilized by the settlers and by all of the sailors. I've heard they were eaten as foodstores. sources. They were also used, the story as I've heard, they were used as balanced for ships, like live tortoises were utilized in that way. They couldn't find a rock. I don't know. I don't know. But that actually turned out to

potentially be one of the reasons why we have tortoises today. The sort of myth story is that the reason that we have the genetics of the Floriana tortoises at all is because, someone picked up these tortoises and put them on a ship. And then they took them off the ship and put them on another island. So the whole reason we had tortoises might be because they were utilizing them on these ships and then offloaded them as cargo onto another island. Wow. So these offloaded tortoises, how close do we think they are to the true original Floriana tortoises?

This is one of those things where both science and good luck came together so that we have Floriana tortoises today. It just so happens that there are some caves on Floriana where there were tortoise remains that were there, which preserve the DNA of those species. That's the only way we know what the true genetics and DNA of Floriana tortoises were like. And then as our long-term partners and scientists that were looking at tourists across all the islands, they thought, hey, these tortoises on this other island that looks like there's different types. What's that all about? So they started doing some genetic analyses and were able to match a few of the individuals that they discovered on this other island to the genetics of the Floriana tortoises. So we believe that there were some Floriana tortoises that were pretty pure bred on this other island that were then brought into captivity and then interbred with a few other tortoises.

But in a way that tried to maintain as much of those genes of the Floriana population as you could. And that's what we have today. Wow, amazing. First of all, I love the excitement in Penny Becker's voice. you can hear it as she's talking. But it sounds like they took this line of tortoises from another island that looked similar to the Floriana gene pool and then they bred them.

Is that right? Yeah. So they ended up over the course of several years with about 20 individual animals involved in this breeding effort. And from those, they raised 158 young tortoises. They raised them to between 8 and 13 years old. So to give a picture that's like about 18 inches in size, a 30 to 50 pound chunk of turtle.

But she said that they're, you know, basically these are preteens in turtle years. They're not going to be mature enough to breed till they're like 25 or so. But now these 158 tortoises are free on Floriana ranging around, although they do have transmitter tags to help track and monitor them. That's great. It's like they're going to college or something. You know what I mean? Like wild times.

A bunch of preteens released on an island by themselves. it sounds like a reality show. Yeah, I mean, she described them as finding their way on Florana Island. And, you know, she said that once upon a time, there were probably thousands of tortoises on this island. So they planned to release more next year and the year after that. And at least so far, it turns out that they seem to be really taking to the island. I asked Penny Becker about the moment they were released.

I'm thinking of seeing, you know, people release the Panther back into the jungle or whatever and they open up the crate and it leaps out. I don't see that happening with the tortoises. You know, sometimes when you see these releases of different animals, they sort of like are a bit hesitant to get out of the box or to see themselves in that environment. That was not the case with the tortoises. From the moment they were able to be, you know, released from from the crates that they were delivered in, they just started out. And they wasted no, time, every green leaf along their way, they're eating it, and they went in every particular direction and started exploring. They did not care that we were there watching them. They just

got out and they started doing their thing right away. It's like the slow motion version of the Panther leap, Charles. Yeah, exactly. Nobody's going to get knocked over by a tortoise leap out of the cage. What was that moment like for Penny Becker? You know, I asked her about that exact thing. It was a fantastic experience. One of the things that was the most exciting about this particular moment is that these tortoises were never experienced on this island in any of our lifetimes. And so I think it was really momentous for the community to understand that the things that they heard from their grandfathers and were just stories in the past. was actually coming true. There was not a dry eye when we did the ceremony with the community

and some of the kids named the tortoises that were going to share their home. It was such an emotional, joyful, amazing experience. We're lucky at Island Conservation because we get to see the promise, especially what's possible on an island. It's a special place with a lot of endemic species, and because it's a closed system, you can see nature come back just like that. And in this case, where we've been working towards the restoration of Floriana for 15 years plus with the community, to be able to celebrate that with them was really meaningful. You know, I remember talking to Veronica, the leader of the Floriana community, and she said, I can't believe we have gotten to this place after so many years. That's really lovely. It's profound.

I mean, we rarely get good news conservation stories. So I love it. Thank you for bringing it, Charles. Yeah, I mean, she stressed that this tortoise reintroduction process is part of a larger context, right? Just releasing tortoises onto the island isn't enough. They've had to remove other invasive species. They have a list of about a dozen other species that they want to bring back to the island. Some of those may come back on their own.

Others are going to need to go through a similar breeding and reintroduction process. But it's definitely a great step. Okay, we have time for a couple more slow-moving stories. What else you got? Well, I want to wish you a very happy sea turtle nesting season, Florida. Sea turtles come out of the ocean onto sandy beaches to build their nests. This is kind of temperature-dependent. But in Florida, figure it's like March to October.

And it turns out Delray Beach, Florida has already reported the first beach nests of leatherback turtles. that's one of several species that are found in Florida waters. How do we celebrate? Well, I mean, some of it seems pretty basic, right? If you're in a place where turtles nest, first be aware that weird shape on the beach might not be a leftover sandcastle. Obviously, don't disturb the nests. They need about two months to hatch.

Don't disturb the turtles. But one thing that surprised me is limit the light pollution on the beaches because the nest laying, you know, it happens in the dark of night and extra light. can mess up the turtle's behavior. Okay. I know you also have one more ancient turtle tale to tell. Yes, this is a fun one. Fossil remnants of what may be an ancient sea turtle stampede. The idea of a sea turtle stampede just really lights up my brain.

Yeah. What is that? This is research published last month in the journal Cretaceous research. The story is... Also, great journal. Yes, one of my top breeds. Back in 2019, a group of free climbers sort of by chance discovered a large number of these footprint traces, they thought, on a limestone slab in Italy on a mountainside near the city of Ankana. And they sent pictures of these to a scientist who then returned to the area to study them.

And you see what looks like a series of flipper marks all moving along together. Imagine, you know, you've got flippers, you're scooting along the ground. There are a bunch of these crescent-shaped marks from your flippers just sort of, you know, shuffling along. Like how many, though? Like, are we talking about hundreds? Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

So you also see like ripple marks from moving water on the stone and they tested the stone and they find fossil plankton in it so that they can get a rough date on. What were they running from? Well, the thought is that there were a bunch of ancient. ancient sea turtles, lazing along the oozy ocean floor. There's an earthquake. The turtles start a stampede to flee the area, leaving these flipper marks in the ooze, and then the mud gets covered by a layer of sediment by the earthquake and frozen in time. So fast forward so 80 million years, it's now a stone slab on the side of a mountain. Beautiful. Cyfry's chief turtle and tortoise correspondent, Charles Berkwist, thank you, Charles. Thanks, Flora. If you have a turtle tail or really any

science tale you want to share or a question. Give us a call. 8774-Sy-Fri is the number, and I'm going to say it again slowly, 8774-4-sifri, you know, like a turtle. We'll see you next time. I'm Flor Lichten.